{"id":23201,"date":"2020-07-25T15:12:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-25T19:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=23201"},"modified":"2021-04-16T08:58:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T12:58:09","slug":"working-the-shot-photo-drafts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/working-the-shot-photo-drafts\/","title":{"rendered":"“Working the Shot”: Photo Drafts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[The five final images in my “Hat Dance” series<\/a>, culled from <\/em>hundreds of separate shots. Click on any image to enlarge it.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working in writing, I’ve long known the value of drafts<\/em>: getting something at all — a prototype — on paper being the obvious priority, followed by some number of “stepwise refinements” (additions, deletions, amendments…), over and over, until you’ve got the finished work before you. (Or, sometimes, until you’re simply wrung out from the repetitious task. But if that “reason” for quitting comes too often, you might as well forget becoming a professional writer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But until recently, photography always seemed different to me: why, I wondered, would you take more than one or two photos of essentially the same subject? Sure, maybe something would obviously be wrong with the first, even maybe the second take… the sun ducks behind a cloud, say, or someone inadvertently walks in front of the camera as you click the shutter. Those, you had to re-shoot. But in recording a single moment, you’d have to accept that once gone, the moment couldn’t be recaptured, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I’ve mentioned before, in the last few months I’ve been trying hard to take photography seriously — starting with the very most basic question: what do I mean by “seriously”? Roughly, what I mean includes these elements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n